Other barometers of the job market also have been generally positive, including measures of manufacturing and service-sector activity. And the number of Americans working part time who prefer full-time work fell sharply in August, Maki notes.

This week, ADP, a payroll processor, estimated that businesses added a tepid 166,000 jobs in September, but that monthly report has diverged by an average of 38,000 from Labor's survey over the past 11 months, O'Sullivan's analysis shows.

Many economists had expected job growth to pick up toward the latter part of 2013 as the effects of federal spending cuts and a payroll tax increase fade. But Maki now says those effects will likely last through the fourth quarter.

"We're not in a breakout phase yet," says economist Michael Dolega of TD Economics. "Businesses don't want to be investing in this environment."

Maki and O'Sullivan say job growth likely strengthened in September largely because tallies the past three months have been below the previous trend. Hence, some payback was in order. They expect employment to pick up in earnest next year.

Of course any sanguine forecasts will be upended by an extended impasse in Congress over funding the government and raising the nation's debt ceiling.

In USA TODAY's survey Friday, economists' median forecast for October's job gains is just 160,000 — assuming that report comes out on time.

It's no coincidence that the last time the Labor Department didn't release the jobs figures as scheduled, typically the first Friday of the month, was in January 1996.

Washington, D.C., was paralyzed by a blizzard and — you guessed it — the last federal government shutdown.